Forms: 2 bileafe, 2–3 -leaue, 2–5 -leue, 5 -leve, 4–6 beleue, -ve, 5–6 -leeve, 6–7 -leefe, 7 -liefe, 7– belief. (Also 5 bileeve, byleyue, belyefe, 5–6 byleue, -ve, 6 b’leue, 6–7 Sc. beleif. [Early ME. bileafe, -leaue, -leue, f. bi-, BE- + leafe:—OE. (Northumb.) léafa, shortened from ʓe-léafa ‘belief,’ a common WGer. abstract sb. (= OS. gilôƀo, MDu. gelôve, Du. geloof, OHG. giloubo, MHG. geloube, Ger. glaube):—OTeut. type *galauƀon- (but not found in Gothic, which had the cogn. galaubeins fem.); f. galaub- ‘dear, esteemed, valued, valuable’; see BELIEVE. The orig. ʓeléafa, ileafe, ILEVE, and its short form léafa, leafe, LEVE, survived till the 13th c., when the present compound, which had appeared already in the 12th c., superseded both. The be-, which is not a natural prefix of nouns, was prefixed on the analogy of the vb. (where it is naturally an intensive), so that believe, belief, go together, as the earlier ʓelíefan, ʓeléafa, and liéfan, léafa, did. The vowel of the sb. (éa) and vb. (WSax. íe, Anglian é) were originally different; but the distinction was lost in ME. On the other hand the final consonants were differentiated in 16th c. the sb. changing from beleeve to beleefe, apparently by form-analogy with pairs like grieve grief, prove proof. The normal mod.Eng. would have been beleave or beleeve.]
1. The mental action, condition, or habit, of trusting to or confiding in a person or thing; trust, dependence, reliance, confidence, faith. Const. in (to, of obs.) a person.
(Belief was the earlier word for what is now commonly called faith. The latter originally meant in Eng. (as in OFrench) ‘loyalty to a person to whom one is bound by promise or duty, or to one’s promise or duty itself,’ as in ‘to keep faith, to break faith,’ and the derivatives faithful, faithless, in which there is no reference to ‘belief’; i.e., ‘faith’ was = fidelity, fealty. But the word faith being, through OF. fei, feith, the etymological representative of the L. fides, it began in the 14th c. to be used to translate the latter, and in course of time almost superseded ‘belief,’ esp. in theological language, leaving ‘belief’ in great measure to the merely intellectual process or state in sense 2. Thus ‘belief in God’ no longer means as much as ‘faith in God’ (cf. quot. 1814 in 2). See BELIEVE 1, and 1 b.)
c. 1175. Lamb. Hom., 101. Cristene men ne sculen heore bileafe bisettan on þere weor[l]dliche eahte.
c. 1375. Wyclif, Serm., Sel. Wks. I. 59. Affie þe, douȝter, þi bileve haþ made þee saif.
c. 1386. Chaucer, 2nd Nonnes T., 63. And though that I, unworthy sone of Eve, Be synful, yet accepte my bileve.
c. 1400. Melayne, 438. What myghte es in a rotyn tree Þat ȝoure byleue es in.
c. 1450. Merlin, 50. It is grete merveile that ye haue so grete bileve to this man.
1508. Fisher, Wks., 271. A stedfast byleue of God.
1535. Coverdale, Tob. ii. We … loke for the life, which God shal geue vnto them, that neuer turne their beleue from him.
1626. Bacon, Sylva, § 327. We knew a Dutch-man, that had wrought himself into the beleif of a great Person by undertaking that he could make Gold.
1837. Carlyle, Fr. Rev., I. IV. iv. 183. Belief in high-plumed hats of a feudal cut; in heraldic scutcheons; in the divine right of Kings.
1859. Tennyson, Elaine, 961. Beyond mine old belief in womanhood.
b. absol. Trust in God; the Christian virtue of faith. arch. or Obs.
c. 1375. Wyclif, Serm., Sel. Wks. I. 21. Neither wiþ figis of bileve, ne wiþ grapis of devocioun.
c. 1400. Apol. Loll., Introd. 6. It is sooth that bileue is grounde of alle vertues.
c. 1400. Destr. Troy, X. 4287. ffor lacke of beleue þai light into errour, and fellen vnto fals goddes.
1578. Q. Elizab., in Farr, S. P. (1845), I. 1. Who shall therefor from Syon geue That helthe whych hangeth on our b’leue?
1593. Hooker, Eccl. Pol., III. i. § 5. The Church hath from the apostles … received belief.
1840. Carlyle, Heroes, vi. 320. That war of the Puritans … the war of Belief against Unbelief.
† c. Out of belief: unbelieving, outside the pale of the faith, Obs.
1493. Festivall (W. de W., 1515), 60. The Jewe that was out of beleve.
2. Mental acceptance of a proposition, statement, or fact, as true, on the ground of authority or evidence; assent of the mind to a statement, or to the truth of a fact beyond observation, on the testimony of another, or to a fact or truth on the evidence of consciousness; the mental condition involved in this assent. Constr. of a statement, or (obs.) a speaker; that…; Belief in (a thing); persuasion of its existence.
1533. Frith, Bk. agst. Rastell (1829), 236. That I would bring the people in belief that repentance of a man helpeth not for the remission of his sin.
1580. Sidney, Arcadia, III. (1590), 385. My only defence shal be beleefe of nothing.
1680. Morden, Geog. Rect. (1685), 254. There is no belief of men that were always accounted Lyers.
1790. Boswell, Johnson, 100. We talked of belief in ghosts.
1814. Wordsw., Excursion, IV. Wks. VII. 161. One in whom persuasion and belief Had ripened into faith.
1843. Mill, Logic, I. i. § 2. The simplest act of belief supposes, and has something to do with, two objects.
1849. Abp. Thomson, Laws Th., § 118 (1860), 240. The amount of belief we have in our judgment has been called its Modality, as being the mode in which we hold it for truth.
1872. Calderwood, Handbk. Mor. Philos. (1874), 248. Belief is the assent of the mind to a truth, while the reality so acknowledged is not matter of observation.
Mod. His statements are unworthy of belief.
3. The thing believed; the proposition or set of propositions held true; in early usage, esp. the doctrines believed by the professors of a religious system, a religion. In modern use often simply = opinion, persuasion.
a. 1225. St. Marher., 4. Ant heide his hethene godes … ant lei to his luthere bileaue.
a. 1340. Richard Rolle of Hampole, Prick of Conscience, 4335. And turne þam til a fals belyefe.
c. 1380. Sir Ferumb., 829. Til he wer cristned … & y-broȝt to þe riȝt beleue.
1393. Gower, Conf., II. 152. The beleves, that tho were.
c. 1400. Maundev., x. 121. Thei holden the Beleeve amonges us.
1530. Rastell, Bk. Purgat., II. iv. Of thys beleve, that the soule shall never dye.
1535. Coverdale, Esther viii. 17. Many of the people in the londe became of the Iewes beleue.
1714. Lady M. W. Montague, Lett., lxxxvi. II. 141. It is my belief you will not be at all the richer.
1836. Hor. Smith, Tin Trump. (1876), 56. Throughout the world belief depends chiefly upon localities, and the accidents of birth.
1877. E. Conder, Bas. Faith, i. 8. The belief that there is no God is as definite a creed as the belief in one God or in many gods.
b. The term is applied by some philosophers to the primary or ultimate principles of knowledge received on the evidence of consciousness; intuition, natural judgment.
1838. Sir W. Hamilton, in Reid’s Wks., 743/1, note. The primary truths of fact, and the primary truths of intelligence (the contingent and necessary truths of Reid) form two very distinct classes of the original beliefs or intuitions of consciousness.
1877. Conder, Basis of Faith, iv. 157. Primary judgments (as that every change must have a cause) are often called beliefs, though ‘intuitions’ would be a better term.
4. A formal statement of doctrines believed, a creed. The Belief: the ‘Apostles’ Creed.’ arch.
c. 1175. Lamb. Hom., 73. Buten heo cunnen heore bileue . þet is . pater noster . and credo.
1377. Langl., P. Pl., B. V. 7. I … sat softly adown and seide my bileue.
c. 1550. How Plowm. lerned Pater-Noster, 54, in Hazl., E. P. P., 211. I mervayll ryght gretly, That thy byleve was never taught the.
1637. Heywood, Dialogues, i. 101. Some sung, and some did say Haile Virgin: others, their Beleefe.
1712. Prideaux, Direct. Ch.-Wardens (ed. 4), 11. Kneeling at the Prayers, Standing at the Belief.
1840. Marryat, Olla Podr. (Rtldg.), 331. I said … the Belief.
† 5. Confident anticipation, expectation. Obs.
1513. Douglas, Æneis, X. ix. 44. That gude beleif quhilk thou has eyk Of Ascanyvs vprysyng to estait.
1535. Stewart, Cron. Scot., II. 235. In the feild sa mony als war slane, Without beleif to gif battell agane.
